By Martin Daly — The record breaking success of Full Extreme is thoroughly deserved. I will add to the boiling pot of opinions of why it struck such a deep chord. For me it is a restatement of the saying that laugh and cry live in the same yard.
I am otherwise reluctant to join in the annual Carnival post mortems but the delusion that our Carnival is “the greatest show on earth” is moving to its own full extreme. “The greatest show on earth” has become a pappyshow claim.
Let's start with this: This year's Panorama champion steel orchestra, Trinidad All Stars, now a ten-time champion, played on two occasions at the Grandstand, once at 3.15 a.m. and once at 2.30 a.m. To have a high quality show, prime bands must play in prime time.
Next there is the withdrawal of spectators in ever increasing numbers over a decade not only from Panorama but from the two days of parade of the bands.
How can we claim “the greatest show on earth” when the show currently attracts only low numbers of spectators? There were reportedly 2000 in the Socadrome. I saw what looked to me like even less in the Grandstand when All Stars, in which my wife and I are happy sailors, sang its way across the stage with the additional refrain: “the rain could come down but we jammin' still”.
One large band has many more bodies than those spectator numbers. By contrast, residents flying out or heading to our beaches away from Carnival comprise numbers probably many more than several large bands.
As an aside, I expect that the business acumen of its promoters of the Socadrome may lead to future success because failure is not an option for them. I hope they succeed because we need alternative venues to bring about a decentralization of the parade from the Savannah bottleneck. Carnival is too big for one venue. One route alone cannot accommodate the juggernaut of trucks, some of which carry a wannabe country club type element superciliously perched above it all.
Dimanche Gras has been equally pitiful in its ability to retain spectators. That show so blight that even a series of bush baths would not relieve it from its terminal condition. A good dose of shame might do that if we were capable of feeling shame. The problem is that shame has been suppressed by the gorging on State funds thrown in abundance at Carnival activities, for which failure is a well rewarded option.
Few commentators have advocated more intensely than I have, that the steelband movement be treasured, that its role in social development cannot be overestimated, that it is a scientific and musical patrimony and that it must not be blitzed out of Carnival by the capitalist takeover of the Carnival routes by means of monster trucks.
Nevertheless, in connection with accountability for State funds, I must ask my many friends in the steelband movement to consider carefully the madness of Panorama hours and the responsibility that comes, or should come, with access to State funds.
The current Minister of Community Development, Arts and Culture has shown the will to re-examine the lax approach to State funding but her Ministry never threatened to defund Carnival activities. However, in a press release in early February she was accused of “a hostile takeover” after insisting on lower budgets and on alternative arrangements for collecting revenue and disbursing State funds.
Interestingly, subsequent to the press release and at variance with it, those arrangements became an agreed interim position for Panorama 2017 within the precincts of the Court where the matter has now reached.
The press release was reported as follows: “Tanty Joan (Yuille-Williams) or big sister Marlene (McDonald) would have applied more class and style in the dealing with groups under their charge. Dialogue would have been the very first intervention. Not bacchanal and scandal in the public domain”.
I have pinched myself many times in trying to equate accountability with a lack of style and class, also trying to understand why meetings about budgets were not “dialogue”. I listened again to Chalkdust's St Joan of Arts, referring to the Ministry of Culture's “rich playground” and predicting that “all the fun and the lahay would go one day, all the fete and dingolay are not here to stay”.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20170304/editorial/becoming-the-greatest-pappyshow-on-earth
Replies
junior lance forbes, can you get a video to share with us? would love to see XO and Minshell carnival Tuesday.
k EXODUS used a Japanese Engineer. They hung the mics over the instruments,a mixing board with speakers speakers up front and at the rear.Sounded real GREAT.
Simplicity is a blessing. Poverty is a curse. In order to have the good quality of simplicity, one must live a simple life. There are super rich persons who live a simple life. A person that comes to mind is Bill Gates. He is not a complicated person. The more the person is simple the more wealth comes. Once you see people lives become complicated, then look out stay away from such persons. So a person could also be poor and live a simple life. That person is rich. Many farmers live like that. Very simple, but they are blessed and rich. So it happens on two sides. Rich or poor one must live simple. Also both sides must have respect for God's laws in any way they can and have respect for other persons regardless of what they have or don't have. Because what ever they have does not truly belong to them. They will leave all God's wealth behind at the time of their death, Simplicity means one has a grasp of these simple God conscious facts. So the qualification of simplicity is a vital one to move forward in life. By my use of the word, I don't look down at people, instead I look up and hope they will also learn good ways of life how to attain wealth in sufficient quantities as well. The truth is we have looked down on Wealth as if it is evil. How could God's wealth be evil? Not possible. It requires a change of attitude towards wealth. It simply (again the use of that word automatically) must be used and distributed properly to other qualified persons. It is simply (again) borrowed energy of the Supreme. It is not ours to keep eternally. So if one requires more by all means go after it in a good and blessed way. That is called simple living and high thinking. It's a spiritual qualification. Try to understand it.
junior lance forbes, I would certainly like to hear more about this, do you have evidence?
I played mas with EXODUS on Carnival Tuesday.I was there
I played mas with EXODUS on carnival Tuesday, I was there.
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